Copyright Advice for Students

It's Fair Use to use copyrighted materials in your assignment so long as you aren't making it publicly available. If you eventually plan to post your assignment to a publicly-accessible website or YouTube, then you are responsible for complying with copyright law and may need to secure permissions or pay royalties on any images, sound clips, or video clips you have used.

Assume that all the words, images, and videos you find online are copyrighted. Somebody created and published everything you see online. If you intend to copy and use something on a publically-accessible website or other publically-distributed publication, you are responsible for identifying the copyright holder and and seeking permission.

Use Royalty-Free images, audio, and video when you can. Clip art in Microsoft Word is royalty-free, or search "royalty-free music" online.

Plagiarism and Copyright are not the same thing. Plagiarism is using someone else's words, graphics or ideas without an appropriate citation acknowledging the source and is academic fraud. You are responsible for properly citing all of your sources, regardless of whether they are copyrighted.

If you don't know whether your use of a resource is Fair Use, ask!

Need additional help? Contact the Reference Desk at 336-517-2149 or Ask a Librarian!